Old Habits Die Hard
by Seito
Summary: When you were trained as an assassin at a tender young age, those skills tend to follow you for life. It was easy to kill a fly in midair with a butter knife without looking, imagine fifty seven ways to kill a man or pick a lock. So breaking out a terrorists' jail is as easy as pie for Tony. It's fun to mess with his teammates too. "So why are you naked?" R


I own the plunny.

Written for avenger kink meme

* * *

When you were trained as an assassin at a tender young age, those skills tend to follow you for life. It was easy to kill a fly in midair with a butter knife without looking, imagine fifty seven ways to kill a man or pick a lock. Just some old habits die hard.

Tony spent all his time trying to suppress his reflexes that often times he looked almost clumsy in comparison. Which Tony was totally fine with because that meant people underestimated him.

Like now.

"So why are you naked?" Tony asked. They had all been locked into tiny cells after being captured by a HYDRA cell. Bruce and Natasha were in one and Tony, Steve, Clint and Thor were in the other. It wasn't surprising to see that all their weapons have been taken from them and Bruce was hooked up to some sort of IV, no doubt to keep him unconscious. It was a tad surprising to see Natasha completely naked though. Well she wasn't completely naked anymore. She seemed to have stolen the tattered remains of Bruce's shirt. Enough to cover, but still left plenty for the imagination.

She growled back at him. "They seem to have think it was easier to strip me naked than to find where I placed all my weapons." Her scowl deepened. "They even removed the wire I had in my hair."

"I guess that means no lock picking huh?" Clint groaned, sitting up as gently as he could. He patted himself down. "Looks like they took all my tools. Glad I didn't end up naked though," he said with a light chuckle, brushing off the glare Natasha threw at him.

"Wakey wakey," Tony said, poking Steve on the side. Steve groaned and swatted away Tony's hand before sitting up. "I feel like I just got hit with Thor's hammer," he moaned.

"Close enough," Clint said. Thor was beginning to come to as well. "I feel like I just was trampled by a Bilgesnipe," the thunder god moaned, nursing his head.

"Probably even more accurate," Clint remarked.

Tony grinned. "Perfect now that everyone is awake, minus Bruce of course, it's time blow this joint," he said, bouncing up to his feet.

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Natasha snarked.

"Tsk tsk, someone is getting snappy over the fact that they took all your weapons," Tony teased.

"Stark. I'm warning you, when we get out of here," Natasha threatened.

Tony ignored her threats and pulled out the inner lining of his pants pocket. In the material between, held several lock picks. Tony torn about the material. "Okay let's see," Tony muttered to himself. "We're gonna need the longer ones." He kneeled down behind the lock, his arms passing through the bars and began feel for the lock's tumblers.

"Tony," Steve asked, warily. "What are you doing?"

"Picking the lock," Tony answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Since when is lock picking one of your skills?" Clint asked, watching Tony carefully.

"Oh there's plenty you guys don't know about me," Tony said cheerfully. "We're rather lucky they put us behind bars and not steel doors. My welding torch is in the other pants back home." There was a snap and Tony pushed the door open. "Ta da!"

He crossed the small hallway and began to pick the lock to Natasha and Bruce's cell. Steve and Clint were helping Thor up his feet. "Watch out!" Natasha suddenly shouted. A guard had appeared at the end of the hallway, gun ready and shouting.

"THE PRISONERS H- errk!"

The guard dropped dead, bullet through the head. "Where the hell did you get a gun from!" Natasha demanded.

Tony shrugged as he put down the smoking gun. "Left shoe." There was an audible click and Tony pushed open cell door.

"You didn't even look!" Natasha cried.

Tony rolled his eyes. "You and Legolas aren't the only ones who can hit a bullseye without looking at the target." He handed her the gun and proceeded to pull out another from his right shoe.

"How many weapons do you have stored on you?" Clint asked. Tony didn't seem like the kind of person to carry weapons other than his Iron Man armor.

"Not as many as Natasha did," Tony answered. He tend reached for his belt and pulled out from it a knife. He tossed that one to Clint. "So Captain, think you and Thor can carry out Bruce from here?"

"Sure," Steve said.

"Where did you learn these skills?" Thor asked.

Tony shrugged. "My grandparents raised me to be an assassin as a kid."

Silence fell. "Well," Tony continued. "They actually wanted me to carry on the family business like mom. But mom put her foot down and said I would be following in Howard's footsteps. My grandparents didn't take that too well but insisted on training me anyways because hello son of a millionaire. Who knew how many times I would get kidnap? Totally true cause I survived half my kidnappings as a kid because of that training."

Tony looked wistfully off in the distance. "Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I take up that side of the family's business. Probably would have been easier than trying to live up to Howard's expectations every day." He muttered the last sentence to himself.

"So yes, I can crack a safe, kill a man from fifteen feet away without looking, nail a bullet dead center in a target, pick locks, snap a guy's neck like he was a stick and have more hidden weapons on me than more people think," Tony said. He stuck his tongue at Natasha in a teasing manner. "I just don't like using them cause they're Natasha's super spy/assassin thing and I like being Iron Man."

Everyone just stared back at him.

"While this is extremely enlightening, may I suggest we get moving?" Clint spoke up. There's a murmur of agreement. Steve and Thor pick up Bruce. Tony and Clint took the front and Natasha in the back.

Three hallways and four dead guards (it was nerve wracking to watch Tony calmly with a slight smile put a bullet through the guards' heads and then loot their bodies for more weapons) later, they found their weapons. Tony was pissed because they had started to take apart his precious baby. Luckily they hadn't been able to reverse engineer anything.

Five explosions later and many more dead guards (such a quiet relief to see Tony fighting as Iron Man) they had as Tony said 'blow the joint'.

They quietly sat in the quintjet. "So," Steve started, breaking the silence. He looked at Tony. "Assassin huh?"

"Yup. We're not telling Fury this okay?" Tony said.

"Why?" Thor asked.

"If you want my mother to kill you and anyone who learns of this tiny little fact in SHIELD, be my guest," Tony said. He was doodling little stick figures and math equations on Bruce's cheek. Poor guy he missed out on all the action. It would be at least another three hours before those drugs cycled out of his system.

"I thought your mother died in a car crash," Natasha asked, curious.

Tony grinned. "That's what the world thinks. She just went to take over the family business full time. I get birthday cards and Christmas cards from her every year."

Steve drew in a sharp breath. He was having a hard time trying to match 'assassin' Tony with their regular normal Tony. It was jarring and from the looks on everyone's faces they were having trouble with it too.

"Tony, unless a situation like this arises again... never again okay?"

Tony smiled. "That's the plan Cap."

* * *

Please Review :3


End file.
